Too Much Smog? Why HK’s The Peak Isn’t Visible Online

Over the recent years, the view of Victoria Harbour is obstructed by smog that hovers along hills surrounding the The Peak’s viewing deck. I bet continuous occurrence of this unfortunate event could be a boon to the telescopes installed for a fee or render them worthless at all. It’s a serious problem that even Hong Kong could face legal challenges amidst worsening pollution levels.

The Peak‘s web site has been revamped not too long ago. To my dismay, the new site exhibited several usability issues that an average user may not be able to overcome. Photos and text are all over the place. The main menu can appear and disappear from an unsuspecting visitor’s view. But there you go, a new web site meant to be funky to reflect the brand name’s easy going attitude isn’t that funky at all.

The fact that many of indexed pages are in Flash format is a testament that the main aim of the web site is to wow its audience. Who needs search referrals for hong kong attractions if the Peak itself is a widely recognized name in Hong Kong and tourists can ask almost everybody in Hong Kong where is the Peak Tram or what bus number to ride to get there?

It should be noted that search engine marketing is still marketing and finding all means to get visitors climbing the hills to get a panoramic view of Hong Kong and Kowloon really mean covering all the bases. Especially that many travelers are becoming disappointed with that fog/smog interfering the views. Just because The Peak was established ahead of Hong Kong Disneyland and Ngong Ping 360 does not mean it’s ahead of its competition. I guess nobody does.

The ailments of The Peak web site that needs to be fixed include the following:

Improper redirection from Website URL to Homepage URL.

Making text versions of the site instead of feeding the audience with the splashy pages.

Lack of distinction between pages using the page title.

The issue with the web site is more about usability than search marketing, since the site has been established for a while (only the design was recent). But there is a correlation. No doubt about it, a lot of sites would love to place a link to The Peak, but if users find it difficult to distinguish which is clickable and which is not, a substantial number of potential backlinks are never materialized.